Last week the Brookline Hub wrote a story about our cutting-edge Boston Marathon Moments project, a collaboration to gather and share community stories in augmented reality (AR) with Traces, a startup founded by London-based neuroscientist, Beau Lotto. Read the story here:

http://brookline.wickedlocal.com/article/20160526/NEWS/160527132
Runners and spectators can add their own stories before, during, or after Marathon Monday through the Traces app, found at Traces.io. Along the marathon route on Beacon Street, near Coolidge Corner and Washington Square, spectators and visitors can use the app to view the stories floating through the air along Beacon Street, waiting to be discovered, caught, and read/watched.

BIG is partnering with Traces to create original local content to be placed around Brookline and the surrounding communities in the app, which community members can then view. Bisbee is interested in sharing and expanding this project, hoping next year to have each town along the marathon route involved in creating and sharing their stories along the Boston Marathon miles through their towns. Initially, this project will focus on the Boston Marathon route as it winds through two miles of Beacon Street in Brookline.

To participate through the production studios at BIG, one can sign up to come in to BIG on a Tuesday evening or Wednesday afternoon to briefly talk about their marathon memories, which could range from a yearly tradition, standout memory, or even their thoughts on this famous event. Participating will take no more than 30 minutes. BIG will professionally film, edit, and produce a brief video for each participant, and then place their story along the marathon route in Brookline. Alternatively, anyone in the Boston area and on Marathon Monday can add stories directly through the Traces.io app to the “Marathon Moments” storytelling campaign.

“Humans have long been able to immerse themselves in other worlds, through oral story or novels, painting, photographs, television, cinema and pure imagination. The mind does not travel alone — the body most certainly comes along for the ride.”

– Nonny de la Peña, Co-Founder, Emblematic Group

Explore the immersive nature of storytelling with both your mind and body at the Northampton Film Festival for our second Public VR Lab event. Sink yourself into our national parks; navigate through stories about loss, abortion and domestic violence; feel the experiences of others in immersive journalism; and create art in VR/AR.

VR/AR and 360 developers and content creators will give short talks from 4-6pm about some of the ten interactive and immersive experiences on many HTC VIVEs, Gear VRs, Google Cardboard, and Hololens.

Join us for an awesome four days in western Mass -art, world-class films (film and workshop schedule available here), storytelling, games, VR, and community participation. As part of the NFF, Mono No Aware from Brooklyn, NY will offer a day-long 16mm and Super-8 filmmaking workshop on Sunday, October 2nd, 2016, and participants’ films will screen that evening at the Festival.

The Crowdsourced Cinema community art project will also screen their version of the Princess Bride on Sunday at 7pm, where 40+ teams each contributed their remade scenes to remake this classic film, whose newly-crowdsourced original score was created by multiple western Mass musicians.